Traveling Thoughts

In the book that I’m reading for English Class, there’s a quote:

“To blog successfully, you must start out opinionated. Pigheaded is good.”^[1]

One of my most favorite blogs is an extremely successful blog.  Dooce has been around for a while now, and I’ve been reading it for about 3 years.  What initially attracted me to this site or how I found it, I don’t recall.

Heather B. Armstrong, the author of the site is extremely opinionated.  But the thing that’s more enjoyable than her opinions is the opinions of others that she posts quarterly.  If she goes through a period of un-opinionated time where the majority of her posts revolve around her daughter Leta, people will let her know what they think.  They’ll tell of why they used to come to her site and that the only reason they now visit is to see if she’s posted anything of interest other than her daughter or lately, the “War of the Clogs” that she’s waging with her husband (which is pretty funny if you ask me).

Heather is such a successful blogger, and maybe more importantly a female blogger that she’s been featured in magazines, she speaks at conferences, participates in interviews and she’s got more readers than some newspapers.  She’s a blogbrity and one of the top ones.  She and her husband (to our knowledge) live off the success of her blog.

I’d have to be pretty high on myself to think that one day I may have a blog as popular as hers.  But one can always dream ;)

California: New Riders, 2002.Hot Text Web Writing That Works  Price, Jonathan and Lisa. 

If you’re a people watcher, or perhaps you like to sit in Star Bucks and listen to peoples conversations, you’d really like to ride the city bus.  Sit near the older women that look like chatter boxes and tune in, they’re guaranteed to not shut up all morning (the afternoon is another story).  You’ll hear about work, their husbands, this person and that, the vacations they’re taking or have been on.  It’s quite entertaining.  And every once in while, something will be said that really spikes your attention and ruffles your feathers and will later on that day, give you something to talk about.

 It was quite interesting to hear one woman talking about how the people that work extra hard and put in extra hours and will come in on the weekends irritate her.  She was saying about how it raises the standards for the other workers (in my opinion, perhaps the not so committed workers).  Her job, for her is all about the money and nothing more, when she leaves work, not only does she leave it physically, but she leaves it mentally.

I’m really sorry that there are people out there that have their job for more than money, that perhaps we really enjoy our jobs, and that while it may not be what you think is the greatest job, it’s the greatest job that we’ve had.  Or perhaps it’s a stop on our way to greatness, sometimes you have to have those not so great jobs to get to the top.  I’m really sorry if we’re raising the standards of work ethics, I’m really sorry that you may have to work a little harder while you’re at work instead of sitting around sipping your mochaccino while you knit whatever it is you’re knitting and talk about topics like this.

ACTUALLY, I’M NOT SORRY!  Not the slightest bit sorry.  It’s about time people had to start working hard again to earn their money.  The work ethic of this country has gone so far down the drain that it’s amazing this country still exists.  We sit and complain about foreign workers coming in and taking our jobs, but you know what, those foreign workers have far better work ethics than we do, they’ll work till they die to be able to support their families, that is until they spend a couple years in the America’s and we ruin them. 

There is something to be said about those of us that are dedicated to our jobs.  That pride ourselves in getting the work done promptly and properly.  Oh, here’s something, she was talking about the women that work extra hard and put in extra hours.  Do you realize that as a women in today’s world, we have to work harder if we want to rise to the top, that we can’t just float around or ride on someone else’s coat tail to get there.  It’s fine that you don’t care about work other than a form of income, but don’t be irritated with the rest of us, respect us.  We’re your future, we are the next CEO’s of the company, we’re the next president of the country.

Last week in my english course, we had a discussion concerning customer service over email.  The majority of the conversations didn’t interest me, but there were a few threads about customer service at the University of New Mexico…and it’s more like “What Customer Service?!?”  There are in general 3 ways to communicate with someone when trying to get service, the old skool way of person-to-person, the telephone, or email.  But here at the University, there’s only one way, and that would be person-to-person, even then you don’t get excellent customer service.  The two worst places to get customer service on campus is with the academic advisors and the financial advisors.  Although, I must say that even though my experience with both has been below par, the academic advisors provide slightly better service.  We are provided with phone numbers and email addresses for either advisor, but 9 times out of 10, if you call you’re going to get voicemail and no call back, or if you email you’re going to get a response that tells you what webpage to visit to troubleshoot your problem.  If they had read the email to begin with, they’d know that you already went to that webpage, you already did what it said, and it didn’t solve your problem, hence why they were emailed.

The worst customer service experience that I’ve had lately was this summer with my financial aid paperwork.  Nearly everything is automated, I can do my FASFA online, I can sign my loan online, I can get the University paperwork online, but then I have to go in person to hand it into an advisor.  There’s no more drop box, and if you mail it, it will mysteriously disappear, never to be seen again, and if you say that you mailed it, they’ll respond that it was never received.  It’s a conspiracy, to get as many angry students as they possibly can in to see the advisors and then to not give them the service they need.  “Well, you’ll need to go check this website in a couple of days and if everything’s ok there, you’ll need to go to this website and do this and then go here and do that…”  No, I came in to see you, I did not wait 3 hrs for you to take my paperwork, spend a minute to look at it and make sure everything was appropriately filled in and then spend a minute telling me what I needed to do next.  If that’s the way that it’s going to be, I should be able to submit the paperwork online, and cut the whole ‘go visit the advisor’ out of the already painful experience of having to get financial aid.  And maybe, if I could do that paperwork online, they could provide me with a F.A.Q. section that will answer all my questions because a phone call or an email to an advisor will get me absolutely nothing other than (on a good day) a website that can’t answer my questions.  But that would be asking too much of these poor people that are overpaid for what they do.

In reality, the definition of customer service here is “I’ll wait on you when I’m finished with my personal life, until then, you’re going to have to wait on me.”  And sadly, that isn’t just the theme here at the University, it’s also the theme in much of New Mexico…Where’s the spirit of Customer Service?  Not in New Mexico nor at their Universities.

I don’t remember the year, I just remember my cousin calling and telling me to call my father.  A call to my father revealed that my step mom’s mom had passed away and that he hadn’t called because calls like that fell under my step mom’s job description.  Some years after that, my cousin calls again (and no, this isn’t the only time she calls) because my great grandmother doesn’t have many years left on her ticket and she wants us to see her again.  God bless my cousin because she flew my sister and I (moody, irritable, hard to manage, pain in the arse teenagers) out there to see my great grandmother, that was the last time that I saw her.  When she kicked the bucket, who was it that called, none other that my great cousin. 

My cousin always has the family news/gossip.  She finds something out and calls me.  This time I knew something first, and what we discovered, we really already knew, it was just proved.  Our family is very dysfunctional, but find me one that’s not…they all are, every family….some more than others…ours may not be the worse, there’s always someone worse, but we’re always worse than someone else…

so, here’s how this one goes, my grandfather has terminal cancer…my sister calls to tell me….my cousin sent me an email about her rough week, i ask if it had anything to do with grandpa (something *SHOCKER* that she didn’t know about).  I think my sister found out from my grandma, but I’m still unsure on who she talked to, to get the information.  My cousin called my uncle to ask him about it, and this is what she found out.

Grandma called dad/step mom, who called family friend, who called aunt, who told uncle, who called grandma…leaving all the rest of us out of the loop…that was chain one, then there’s chain two…sister calls me who emails cousin who calls uncle who says ‘oh yeah’…cousin calls me to rant and rave about this communication issue which spawns this blog…i get an email from grandma about the entire situation…

it’s pretty pathetic when there’s a family member with terminal cancer and there’s no string of communication. in fact, it’s severly screwed up…

for future notice this is how this should have worked:
grandma calls dad who calls daughters (and perhaps the rest of the family)…and i don’t call anyone because i don’t communicate with this part of the family other than my cousin

names have been withheld to protect the idiots in my family.  if a family member is reading this, forgive me if i’ve offended you

It was a usual morning at work, I was walking from building B back to building A and en route, there was a snail.  I can’t remember the last time I saw a snail outside of a fish tank.  Even cooler than the snail that I saw, was that it was more than just the shell, it’s little head was poking out.  And even though from my 5 feet 4 inches view from above I couldn’t see her moving, it’s possible that she was moving in some general direction.  Most likely out of the way of wandering humans that could in one step, decimate her.

I’m always on the hunt for something interesting to take a picture of.  Today that interesting thing was a snail.  Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have a camera (my brand new digital camera that I had had for only a week has been on vacation with my parents for almost three weeks); so, what did I do, I picked up the snail and took it with me back to my desk.  Of course, upon picking her up she receded into her shell, and I didn’t think that she was going to come back out, but she did, and that was cool.  After so poking and prodding by coworkers, I set her down on my desk and she proceeded to creep around my desk.  It was way cool.

I tracked down a camera and took a picture of Sally (yes, we named her). 

This is her up close, slimy tail and all, I liked her antennae the most, I had to wait patiently for her to stick them out that long.  In this next pic, you can’t see her particularly well, but you can see the slime trail she left in her wake. 

At one point, she had creeped all the way over from where she started, about a foot from my mouse pad, and within moments, she was there, climbing up the books that elevate my mousepad, and then a moment more than that she was about to creep onto my mousepad when I saw her trail on the books and decided I shouldn’t let her do that.

Yes, I am easily amused, and this was the great amusement that I got on this particular Wednesday morning.

I got asked today if I get up in the morning and scratch my balls.  The conversation went something like this:

Girl: “Damn girl!  Do you get up in the morning and scratch your balls?”
Me: Raised eyebrows.
Girl: “It’s the first day of classes and you’re already causing trouble.”
Me: “Well it was unfair what he did.  And yes, I do wake up in the morning and scratch my balls.” (sarcastically said)
*High Five*
Girl: “You go girl!”

You’re probably wondering what crime it is that I committed.  Frankly, it wasn’t me that commited the crime.  It was the professor. 

“Would anyone that got a ‘B+’ or higher in course A or course B please raise their hands?”
*hands hesitantly get raised*
“Would those students that raised their hands please come to the front of the room?”
*students hesitantly head to the front of the classroom*
“There’s only 8 up here, I know I counted more hands, come on people” (or something to that effect)
*two more students come to the floor*
“These are the people that you guys (to the sitting students) need to form groups around, I don’t want any two of these people up here in the same group.”
*sitting students get a good look, standing students return to their desks*

Massive irritation ensued on my part, and not only my part, but other student’s parts as well.  As far as I was concerned it was a crime to call out the high graded students and have them grouped with the low graded students.  As I wrote to another professor that I hold in highest regards:

There are people that didn’t do well in those courses because they never 
showed up for class or they didn’t do the work, or they failed the tests 
because they were sucker fishing off other students for the homework.

As she so nicely put it, what I didn’t say was that I was concerned that my team work/grade will suffer because of the need to rely on less motivated folks.

I couldn’t just sit there and let this happen.  So I said something.   It went something like this:

Sir, I may get black listed for stating this, but I think that it was highly unfair that you just segregated us based on our grades.

What it came down to is that he wasn’t trying to segregate us based on our grades, but that he was trying to pull out the high skill set of students and group them with lesser skilled students.  Another student mentioned that he could have put it in a more politically correct way.  And again, he did apologize.  And we do get to choose our groups, but the point is what he did was wrong.  But it’s forgiven now, and I’ve blogged it, so nothing further shall be said.

As I left work today, I felt like crying. 

It’s strange really.  I can’t remember a time when I was sad that I was going to have to work part time because of school.  I think I’ve always been relieved when school has started because in general, that means less work. 

Most of you readers don’t know this, but I got a really great job at a really great place that I really can’t mention because I really don’t want to be dooced. But it’s a really great job that I really enjoy.  In fact, I’ll go as far as to say that I really love my really great job.

For 89 days now, I’ve gone to work Monday-Friday, 8 hrs a day.  And I’ve been really happy to do so.  I get up early in the morning and arrive to work as happy as can be.  It’s been a really great last 3 months.  And unlike most interns that had to go back to school and no longer have a really great internship, I get to continue mine.  And so, while I’m really fortunate to still have my really great internship, I’m really (possibly) depressed that I can only be happy at work 3 days a week rather than the usual 5.

My mom used to work with John Jennings, when she worked with him he wasn’t the mayor.  When I met him, he was the mayor.  The first time I met him was at this thing in highschool where we went to different talks to hear about what we could do when we graduated.  He was one of the speakers that I had the opportunity to listen to.  I fought with him over something at that event.  I don’t remember what it was about, but I was proud of it and I came home and told mom all about it.  I was right and I was sure of it.  But now they reasons for that evade me.  There is one thing about Mr. Jennings that will never evade my mind.  Mom was the first one to tell me about it, but it was Mr. Jennings that had told her.  It was about the importance of a hand shake.  She came home from work one day and asked me to shake her hand.  An odd request coming from my mother, but I did it.  I don’t remember what kind of handshake that I gave her, but I do remember the conversation that ensued. 

The importance of a firm handshake.
A firm handshake sends the message that you are confident, composed, and happy to meet the person that you’re shaking hands with.  On the other hand, there’s the much dreaded limp fishy handshake.  The one that sends the message that you aren’t self confident and that you aren’t happy to meet the person with whom you’re shaking hands.  So no matter who I met, unless I was willing to not shake a person’s hand, I’d better give them a nice firm handshake.

This message was reinforced when he spoke at my crimson dinner.  (A dinner for the top 25 students in the class)  He told us that no matter where we went, no matter who we met, we needed to give a good firm handshake because a handshake was one of the first and lasting impressions that we’d give those people.

It probably doesn’t take much to figure out why I’m writing this, let me put it simply incase you’ve missed it, and I can say it in 2 words:: FIRM HANDSHAKE.

Where’s your self confidence?

I’ve only solved a rubik’s cube twice before; once when i was little and i peeled the stickers off, and once a few years ago.  Once it was solved, the for real time, a friend messed it up and said do it again.  I couldn’t.  I took me on the order of 5 hours to solve it tonight, but I solved it ;)  I’d get so close two rows complete, make a few turns, screw the darn thing up and have to start all over again.  But I solved it.  Mess it up, and I probably won’t be able to do it again.  The cool thing about it is, if I’m frustrated, I can go to the cube, if it frustrates me, I can return to that which frustrated me first.  Somewhere among the two, I’m bound to come up on top.

When I was younger, and actually, to this day the rule probably still stands. I keep my room clean or mom will clean it for me.  I only saw this exercised once, but that’s all it took.  My mom went into my sister’s pigsty of a room and cleaned it out.  What was once an over flowing toybox was only a quarter of the way full when my mom left.  The desk drawers that were jam packed were now virtually empty.  Dust bunnies along with a world of other stuff that was creeping out from under the bed was no longer.  I’m fortunate to say that there’s maybe been only once that mom has threatened to clean my room and I was in there so fast cleaning it myself to her expectations that I was able to salvage 90% of my stuff. 

You’re probably wondering why this story is coming up now.  Well, it’s simple.  Never in our lifetimes has there been clothes allowed on our floors, and if there were clothes on our floors they were only there for mere moments, or a little longer on certain occassions.  Those mere moments were between us stripping and moving the clothes quickly to laundry baskets, or perhaps it was towels on the floor after we had gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed, if the towels weren’t hung, they were on their way to a basket.  The certain occassion, that was on laundry day.  When our laundry would go from the basket into piles to be thrown into the washer.  Even when mom did our laundry the piles were in front of the washer/dryer, but as we grew up and started helping her the piles were in our rooms lined up waiting for their turn in the washer.  This is why, of all days, this story gets told today.  I was doing laundry.

So, for all the parents that do have children whose floors are buried under a half of foot of laundry and never get seen, this is for you.

Does your childs room look like this:

Would you like it to look like this:

For a small fee, we can send you a scorpian that can make your dreams come true. 

Simply place the scorpian under their clothes when it’s time for them to do their laundry.  If you’re lucky, when they pick up their clothes it will be there, scare the living daylights out of them that a poisonous creature was living under their laundry and their room will be clean shortly there after.  If the scorpian isn’t there when they pick up their laundry, you’ve got some praying to do.  If someone get’s stung go directly to the ER.  We wouldn’t send you a lethal scorpian, but just as a precaution, it’s in your best interest to go to the ER.

A mother that truely loves her children, would never put them in danger, so this is a bad marketing plan.  The truth of it however, is that it would probably work.  Within moments of me finding the scorpian, first thinking it was fuzz and bending over to pick it up when it then unrolled it’s tail, I had dropped the laundry in a different location, grabbed a shoe and tried to kill it.  Those damn things don’t die easily, in fact Fred’s still with us.  He’s in the bottle that I chased him into with the shoe since he wouldn’t die.  Needless to say, my floor is spotless, all laundry has been removed from it.  And I can GUARANTEE you that there will never be a pile of laundry on my floor again.